Related papers: Techniques for High-Contrast Imaging in Multi-Star…
Direct detection and detailed characterization of exoplanets using extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) is a key science goal of future extremely large telescopes (ELTs). However, wavefront errors will limit the sensitivity of this endeavor.…
Imaging faint objects, such as exoplanets or disks, around nearby stars is extremely challenging because host star images are dominated by the telescope diffraction pattern. Using a coronagraph is an efficient solution for removing…
Direct imaging of exoplanets by reflected starlight is extremely challenging due to the large luminosity ratio to the primary star. Wave-front control is a critical technique to attenuate the speckle noise in order to achieve an extremely…
The Magellan extreme adaptive optics (MagAO-X) instrument is a new extreme adaptive optics (ExAO) system designed for operation in the visible to near-IR which will deliver high contrast-imaging capabilities. The main AO system will be…
High-dispersion coronagraphy (HDC) optimally combines high contrast imaging techniques such as adaptive optics/wavefront control plus coronagraphy to high spectral resolution spectroscopy. HDC is a critical pathway towards fully…
The Habitable Worlds Observatory requires active speckle suppression to directly image Earth-like exoplanets. Focal plane wavefront sensing and control allows us to detect, and subsequently remove, time-varying speckles through measurements…
Exoplanetary science is a very active field of astronomy nowadays, with questions still opened such as how planetary systems form and evolve (occurrence, process), why such a diversity of exoplanets is observed (mass, radius, orbital…
Direct imaging is the primary technique currently used to detect young and warm exoplanets and understand their formation scenarios. The extreme flux ratio between an exoplanet and its host star requires the use of coronagraphs to attenuate…
Exoplanet direct imaging allows us to directly probe and characterize an exoplanet's atmosphere, searching for signs of life in its atmospheric signatures. Directly imaging an Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star requires reaching…
Imaging rocky planets in reflected light, a key focus of future NASA missions and ELTs, requires advanced wavefront control to maintain a deep, temporally correlated null of stellar halo at just several diffraction beam widths. We discuss…
High-contrast imaging has been used to discover and characterize dozens of exoplanets to date. The primary limiting performance factor for these instruments is contrast, the ratio of exoplanet to host star brightness that an instrument can…
Direct imaging of exoplanets requires establishing and maintaining a high contrast dark field (DF) within the science image to a high degree of precision (10^-10). Current approaches aimed at establishing the DF, such as electric field…
The past decade has seen a significant growth in research targeted at space based observatories for imaging exo-solar planets. The challenge is in designing an imaging system for high-contrast. Even with a perfect coronagraph that modifies…
In astronomy and microscopy, distortions in the wavefront affect the dynamic range of a high contrast imaging system. These aberrations are either imposed by a turbulent medium such as the atmosphere, by static or thermal aberrations in the…
All coronagraphic instruments for exoplanet high-contrast imaging need wavefront correction systems to reject optical aberrations and create sufficiently dark holes. Since the most efficient wavefront correction algorithms (controllers and…
Current and future high contrast imaging instruments aim to detect exoplanets at closer orbital separations, lower masses, and/or older ages than their predecessors, with the eventual goal of directly detecting terrestrial-mass…
Extra-solar planets have not been imaged directly with existing ground or space telescopes because they are too faint to be seen against the halo of the nearby bright star. Most techniques being explored to suppress the halo are achromatic,…
The raw coronagraphic performance of current high-contrast imaging instruments is limited by the presence of a quasi-static speckle (QSS) background, resulting from instrumental non-common path errors (NCPEs). Rapid development of efficient…
A key challenge of high contrast imaging (HCI) is to differentiate a speckle from an exoplanet signal. The sources of speckles are a combination of atmospheric residuals and aberrations in the non-common path. Those non-common path…
Combining large segmented space telescopes, coronagraphy and wavefront control methods is a promising solution to produce a dark hole (DH) region in the coronagraphic image of an observed star and study planetary companions. The thermal and…